


As if!

by queenofchildren



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: “where r u?”Juliet’s grating text speak makes her even more irritated, but at least it’s a sign her cousin noticed that something’s wrong in the first place.“We’re fucking -”Someone jostles her, and Rosaline accidentally hits send too early. She quickly adds the rest of the statement:“-looking for you!”Or: a misunderstanding gives Rosaline and Benvolio some ideas.





	As if!

This is all Juliet’s fault.

If her little cousin hadn’t decided that Rosaline, home for the holidays for less than a day, had to meet her new boyfriend, Rosaline would sure as hell not have gone out to meet any new people tonight.

If Juliet hadn’t picked a rock concert, of all things, as the ideal place to introduce her questionable new boyfriend (possibly to limit the amount of questions Rosaline would be able to ask when grilling him on his intentions), then Rosaline wouldn’t be stumbling around a concert venue lobby, frantically looking for her little cousin and said boyfriend who took off for the front of the hall to dance during the first song of the set and haven’t been seen since.

And if Juliet hadn’t picked a _Montague_ of all people, the one guy most likely to piss off her parents and get the whole town talking, Rosaline wouldn’t currently be stuck with the _other_ Montague, who turned out to be their designated driver for the night – not that anyone bothered to tell her that beforehand.

Now, the Montague and her are standing closer together than she ever intended to be with any Montague, let alone this one, and she has to remind herself that this is a good thing: At least she isn’t completely alone, and she still has access to her ride home. Unfortunately, that ride home is also the last person she ever wanted to be stuck with, considering the man is the most exasperating person she ever met, and they barely made it through their pre-concert dinner at a vegan burger restaurant without ending the night right then. Their dislike of the idea of vegan burgers was the only thing she and Benvolio agreed on all evening, and now suddenly they’re supposed to work together to get their stray cousins back?

Rosaline wishes with all her might that she and Juliet were back at her aunt and uncle’s house for the welcome-home-activity _she_ suggested, which would be lounging around in their pyjamas, eating a lot of ice-cream and chatting and giggling and getting drunk on storebought Pina Colada mix.

Her buzzing phone brings her back to the reality of the increasingly crowded lobby.

**“where r u?”**

Juliet’s grating text speak makes her even more irritated, but at least it’s a sign her cousin noticed that something’s wrong in the first place.

**“We’re fucking -”**

Someone jostles her, and Rosaline accidentally hits send too early. She quickly adds the rest of the statement:

**“-looking for you!”**

She tucks her phone away to avoid dropping it as another wave of concert-goers sweeps them further towards the doors. The irresistible, brutal force of their mass is beginning to get scary when Benvolio takes hold of her arm and pulls her behind a column and out of the writhing stream of people.

When she looks at her phone again, it’s blowing up with messages from Juliet.

**“WHAT????”**

**“wtf rose?!?”**

**“how fucking drunk are you???”**

**“after ranting about how annoying you find him earlier? Really?!?”**

Rosaline is momentarily confused by this response, then her eyes fall on her last message – and the little red warning beside it: message not sent.

What she sent Juliet is just the first part of her message: “we’re fucking.” That’s it. And since Juliet knows who she’s with, Rosaline can understand her confusion.

**“No, Jules! We’re not”,**

she has to force herself to type the word,

**“fucking. We’re fucking LOOKING FOR YOU, is what I meant to write.”**

She waits for the whole message to go through, then quickly adds:

**“As if!”**

“Ridiculous,” she huffs to herself, and only then remembers that Benvolio is standing right there, crowding her against the column in a way she would find unacceptable if it wasn’t clear he's just shielding her from the slew of people. Which in itself is irritating too, because him being considerate like this makes her think he may not be as bad as she thought he was, and she was perhaps being a little prematurely judgmental based on her bad mood and the fact that in her family, hating Montagues is par for the course even when one doesn’t really know them all that well.

“What’s ridiculous?” Benvolio cuts through her thoughts to ask.

Obviously, repeating Juliet’s assumption out loud is out of the question, so Rosaline holds up her phone and shows him their misunderstanding-laden conversation. His eyes go wide for a moment, then he chuckles.

“Looks like you gave poor Juliet quite the shock.”

“I can’t believe she even thought I was serious. I mean, can you imagine?”

The words just slip out before she can realize that a) they’re actually pretty mean-spirited, even towards a Montague and b) now that she’s said them out loud, her mind is itching to do just that, as if issued a challenge to try and really imagine the unlikely scenario.

And then Benvolio cocks his head to the side, studies her for a moment, and says: “I can, actually.”

Her mouth falls open in shock as the words sink in. She waits for him to laugh, say he was just kidding… but he doesn’t. He looks at her for another moment, then his earnest expression turns embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”

She’s not entirely sure what triggers her next move – maybe it’s the prospect of the upcoming holidays, sharing an air mattress with her sister in the room that used to be theirs and has now been turned into a home gym, dodging her aunt’s constant nagging and her uncle’s questions about whether or not she’s got a career or a rich husband to show off yet, and sitting through the inevitable blow-up when Juliet reveals that she’s been dating a Montague for the past three months.

Maybe it’s the way he immediately tries to take a step back, give her space and let her know that he isn’t trying to pressure her.

Maybe it’s the fact that she hasn’t had any action in months due to heartbreak and stress and he _is_ attractive, in that careless, golden-boy, “everyone loves me ‘cause I’m rich”- sort of way that would remind her too much of the frat boys at her college if it weren’t for his smiles, which are genuine and bright and generously issued.

In any case, her mind takes his “I can, actually” and runs with it, straight to a detailed preview of what _exactly_ he might be imagining, and next thing she knows Rosaline grabs the back of his neck, pulls him close, and kisses him – and Benvolio goes right along.  

Which means she doesn’t need to be careful or hesitant about it, and Benvolio in turn hums against her lips and grabs her waist and pulls her flush against him to make sure she doesn’t have a second to regret her impulsive choice.

She’s soon pressed completely back against the column behind her, his hands stretching her shirt across her ribcage and his beard scratching her neck and his hair soft under her hands, and when he breaks away, the idea that he wants to stop is actually disappointing.

“Fuck, Capulet,” he pants, matching her own labored breaths, “are you sure you’re not having some sort of out-of-body experience?”

“I may be,” she replies, which is the truth but she doesn’t even care right now.

Benvolio chuckles and bumps his nose into hers in an oddly sweet gesture. “So, I’m annoying, huh?”

“Shut up!”

He complies, catches her lips for another hot, open-mouthed kiss, and doesn’t talk again until someone clears their throat beside them – their cousins have found them while things were just short of getting indecent, both wearing identical shit-eating grins.

Benvolio ushers them all into his car without a word of comment, then kicks Juliet and Romeo out  at Romeo’s dorm and takes Rosaline straight to his own apartment.

And a few months later, when things between them show no signs of cooling off, Juliet smugly continues to tell everyone that it was all her fault.


End file.
